ABSTRACT
This paper looks at the journal Form, a “little magazine” that ran from 1966–1969. In Form we see a unique conceptual constellation involving algorithmic architecture, abstract art, and structuralist theory. Because it was founded at the University of Cambridge in the mid-1960s, Form fits most neatly within the lineage of British avant-garde art and architecture centered on London and its periphery. The architecture department at Cambridge had been headed since 1956 by Leslie Martin, a modernist architect and protagonist of the Circle group in 1937. Another related publication, Data, modeled itself on Circle thirty years later, providing evidence that a neo-avant-garde around London was experimenting with computation while tweaking decades-old agendas of abstraction. Form – which was edited by Philip Steadman, Stephen Bann, and Mike Weaver – belongs to this loose set of artistic groups and tendencies. Like other movements in art and architecture, Form eagerly drew contemporary theory and philosophy into its mix. Thus we find figures like Roland Barthes rubbing shoulders with concrete poets and computation devices. The lasting contribution of Form was to consolidate structuralist tendencies in the British artistic scene, serving as a testing ground for algorithmic dreams that would soon come to architecture.
